The present invention concerns a steam pressure and conditioning valve.
The present invention includes common subject matter disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 10/039,345, entitled Steam Pressure Reducing and Conditioning Valve by the same inventor Hiroyuki Higuchi, filed concurrently on Jan. 4, 2002, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Applicant has discovered a further refinement and improvement to the steam pressure reducing and conditioning valve (hereinafter xe2x80x9cconditioning valvexe2x80x9d) for which he has made application for letters patent in application U.S. Ser. No. 10/039,345 by inventor Hiroyaki Higuchi filed concurrently with this application on Jan. 4, 2002 under.
A first embodiment of the invention as described and claimed in the aforementioned related application may be described as follows.
As illustrated in FIG. 3, a first embodiment of the present invention comprises a vapor change valve 18 for passing hot and high pressure steam S inflowing from a first port 1 through a pressure reducing section 2, and supplying subcooled water W and discharging desuperheated and depressurized steam S2 from a second port 3. One or more nozzles 4 for supplying subcooled water W are provided in proximity to said pressure reducing section 2. A flat nozzle 4a injects subcooled water W in a planar pattern r. Nozzle 4 is positioned so that there is a predetermined distance L between the jet pattern r of subcooled water W injected from flat nozzle 4a and the pressure reducing section 2. In the first embodiment, conditioning valve 18 includes a pressure reducing section 2 with a bottom and a cylindrical shape. The subcooled water W jet pattern r is selected to be substantially parallel to the bottom of the pressure reducing section 2. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that one or more of nozzles 4 for injecting moisture W may be juxtaposed in several stages in the a moisture supply section 5 of valve 18. The nozzle 4 disposed in the position nearest to the pressure reducing section 2 is a flat nozzle 4a. Other nozzles 4 disposed further away from the pressure reducing section 2 may have jet patterns of either planar or conical.
Applicant has tested the first embodiment of the conditioning valve as illustrated in FIG. 3 and determined the following limitations:
First, as shown in FIG. 4, the vapor discharge area 19 has an annular shape narrow in width L1. Consequently, during the collision of outflow vapor S1 with the sub cooled water mist W, a part of subcooled water mist W crosses the moisture supply section 5, and impinges against the opposite side wall face 5a and liquefies (condenses), reducing the effective amount of subcooled water mist W to be contacted by the steam S1 flow.
Second, as shown in FIG. 4, the vapor discharge area 19 is near the wall face 5a of the body 6. The collision with the subcooled water mist W tends to occur in the vicinity of the wall face 5a. 
As the result, a part of chilled water mist W is directed back to the proximal side wall face 5a and liquefied (condensed), so the subcooled water mist W does not work as effectively as it might.